Muslim Brotherhood parade nuns through the streets like prisoners of war after attack on Franciscan school

By Deacon Nick Donnelly, on August 18th, 2013

The Muslim Brotherhood have paraded three nuns through the streets like prisoners of war and sexually assaulted their lay colleagues after attacking and burning a Franciscan school. One of the Franciscan sisters said:

“We are nuns. We rely on God and the angels to protect us. At the end, they paraded us like prisoners of war and hurled abuse at us as they led us from one alley to another without telling us where they were taking us.”

Two Christian women member of staff were also attacked and sexually assaulted by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to one of the Franciscan nuns who witnessed the sexual assault, the two members of staff ad to fight their way out of the mob, while being groped, hit and insulted by the extremists.

Sister Manal, the principal of the Franciscan school in Bani Suef has given an account of the Franciscan nuns maltreatment by the Islamists:

‘Sister Manal is the principal of the Franciscan school in Bani Suef. She was having breakfast with two visiting nuns when news broke of the clearance of the two sit-in camps by police, killing hundreds. In an ordeal that lasted about six hours, she, sisters Abeer and Demiana and a handful of school employees saw a mob break into the school through the wall and windows, loot its contents, knock off the cross on the street gate and replace it with a black banner resembling the flag of al-Qaida.

By the time the Islamists ordered them out, fire was raging at every corner of the 115-year-old main building and two recent additions. Money saved for a new school was gone, said Manal, and every computer, projector, desk and chair was hauled away. Frantic SOS calls to the police, including senior officers with children at the school, produced promises of quick response but no one came.

The Islamists gave her just enough time to grab some clothes.

In an hourlong telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manal, 47, recounted her ordeal while trapped at the school with others as the fire raged in the ground floor and a battle between police and Islamists went on out on the street. At times she was overwhelmed by the toxic fumes from the fire in the library or the whiffs of tears gas used by the police outside.

Sister Manal recalled being told a week earlier by the policeman father of one pupil that her school was targeted by hard-line Islamists convinced that it was giving an inappropriate education to Muslim children. She paid no attention, comfortable in the belief that a school that had an equal number of Muslim and Christian pupils could not be targeted by Muslim extremists. She was wrong.

The school has a high-profile location. It is across the road from the main railway station and adjacent to a busy bus terminal that in recent weeks attracted a large number of Islamists headed to Cairo to join the larger of two sit-in camps by Morsi’s supporters. The area of the school is also in one of Bani Suef’s main bastions of Islamists from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and ultraconservative Salafis.

“We are nuns. We rely on God and the angels to protect us,” she said. “At the end, they paraded us like prisoners of war and hurled abuse at us as they led us from one alley to another without telling us where they were taking us,” she said. A Muslim woman who once taught at the school spotted Manal and the two other nuns as they walked past her home, attracting a crowd of curious onlookers.

“I remembered her, her name is Saadiyah. She offered to take us in and said she can protect us since her son-in-law was a policeman. We accepted her offer,” she said. Two Christian women employed by the school, siblings Wardah and Bedour, had to fight their way out of the mob, while groped, hit and insulted by the extremists. “I looked at that and it was very nasty,” said Manal.

Protect the Pope comment: The attack on the Franciscan nuns, the sexual assault on the staff of the school, and the burning of the 115 year old Franciscan school that taught Muslim and Christian children occurred in a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold. This attack on defenseless nuns and teachers is a consequence of Sheikh Yusif al-Qaradawi’s incitement of his followers to retaliate against the Christians. And still the BBC are portraying the Muslims Brotherhood as the victims of the violence in Egypt, when they are attacking and sexually assaulting women who have dedicated their lives to the education of Muslims and Christians. Shame on the BBC the British press. Fox News and Huffington Post have reported this attack on nuns but as yet none of the British media.

@tro,
This, I feel, is a situation very much akin to that with which Pope Pacelli was presented when the Nazis savaged both the Christians and Jews during WWII.
Openly condemning the Muslim Brotherhood’s present pogram would be self-defeating inasmuch as it would likely result in more barbaric and widespread vengeance exacted.
Coptic Pope Tawadros II specifically has spoken out against the violence and I think that is sufficient for the situation and, in itself, dangerous enough for all concerned.
Mary Help of Christians, Pray for Us!

maybe the christians should do it to muslims in their countries and see if they like it! This is a pandemic muslim thing. They do it to hindus and buddhists in Pakistan and Banglades, the zoroastrians in Iran, the Christians in Iraq, Syria, etc. if anyone did it to them, there will be hell!

Unfortunately this only goes to show the evil of Islam. They can’t possibly believe in the same God as I do for he is a loving, compassionate and caring God who would never condone such evil. Remember ‘ thou shall not kill’ and love thy neighbour as thyself’?

I just had a thought…..
What are Muslims so afraid of in Christianity? Is it because they know something that all Christians have always known – There is only one true God and it doesn’t seem to be theirs!